The Rainfall Market by You Yeong-Gwang *****

The Rainfall Market by You Yeong-Gwang

Serin, a useless human, received a golden ticket into the mysterious Rainfall Market, where she could get a Dokkaebi Orb, which would grant her the extraordinary–or ordinary–life she desired. “A lingering sense of warmth.” An antidote to 2025.

Serin lives in the poorest section of town with her mother, who embarrassingly darns her socks. “After classes, the other students went off to expensive crammers. Serin was the only one who headed home. Serin sighed as she looked up at the endless steps that led up the hillside. She hated these steps almost as much as she hated sitting bored in school.” She was the ideal candidate for a Ticket to the Rainfall Market, where she could completely change her life.

“The Strange Rumor. Somewhere far outside the big city was a place called Rainbow Town. And somewhere in Rainbow Town was a run-down, abandoned house. Rumor had it that if you sent a letter about your misfortune to this house, you would receive a mysterious Ticket. If you brought that Ticket to the house on the first day of the rainy season, you could completely change your life.”

 

“Serin: A girl who wants to escape her dreary life. Invited to a mysterious market that only opens during the rainy season, Serin is caught up in a whirlwind of adventures. She wanders the Rainfall Market in search of happiness. Issha: A guide cat who follows the holder of the Golden Ticket. A spirit creature who looks like a cat but acts like a puppy, Issha changes size at will and guides Serin to the Dokkaebi stores that keep the futures she wants.”

It is not as simple as all of that. Read this delightful book to enjoy Serin’s adventures and join her as she learns about herself and true happiness.

The author’s objective was: “Something that left readers with a lingering sense of warmth even after they turned the last page. A light, fun read that was still packed with meaning. A book that could heal wounded hearts and cast a ray of hope into the darkness.” See if you think he accomplished his goal.

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Blacktop Wasteland by S A Cosby *****

 Blacktop Wasteland by S A Cosby

Hard times for Beauregard. His garage mortgage is behind, the suppliers unpaid. The competition’s killing him. His mother owes the nursing home. His kids need eyeglasses, braces, and college tuition. What’s he willing to do? Fast-paced thriller.

Beauregard Montage did his time. When he married Kia, he promised to leave the Life. He had a double-wide, a business, and two boys, Darren (8) and Javon (12). When Precision Auto opened Red Hill County, Montage Motors was in trouble. Ronnie and Reggie Sessions convinced Beauregard (Bug) that one more job was the answer. He was the best wheelman in Virginia.  The job went south. Fortunately, Bug never got discouraged and never ran out of ideas.

Beauregard had a mixed relationship with this father, Anthony Ant Montage. They had good times, and his father taught him to drive and be a mechanic. However, his father also introduced him to the Life, sent him to juvie, and left when Bug was young. Beauregard was concerned that he’d be no better dad than his father was.

The original jewelry store heist was a money laundering operation. Nothing was reported to the cops, but Bug and his friends were pursued by big-time gangsters.

This book has some of the best car chases. “Now that was what I call some driving! That’s why I needed the Bug! Goddamn, I thought I saw Jesus trying to take the wheel, but you were like nah, Hoss, I got this!”

Quotes

Explanations were like assholes. Everyone has one, and they are all full of sh*t.

But it’s like I gave my boys a sickness. The counselor in juvie called it a ‘propensity for violent conflict resolution.’

What Javon did ain’t really his fault. Violence is a Montage family tradition.

Fast-paced, bare-knuckle thriller: ‘Drive it like you stole it.’ – Stephen King

Plenty of violence.

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The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown ***

The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown

Two books in one. A thriller with the CIA as the evil villain. Sci-Fi with endless infodumps that felt like I was in college lectures (asleep). All mixed with Dan Brown mysticism. If you love Dan Brown, you won’t be disappointed. Otherwise, skip it.

Robert Langdon (professor of symbology) came to the aid of Dr. Katherine Solomon (noetic scientist) when the CIA stole her book and destroyed all copies. Why did the CIA care about a book that explored “the enduring mysteries of the human mind…the nature of consciousness and of the soul?” Dr. Solomon believes in non-local consciousness, as evidenced by “ESP, sudden savant syndrome, precognition, blindsight, out-of-body experiences…the list goes on and on.” The action takes place in Prague and includes a Golěm.

Three forces are in conflict. The CIA is defending its evil-genius project (Threshold) buried beneath Prague in an abandoned bomb shelter. The Golěm is out to destroy the CIA installation. Robert and Katherine talk about human consciousness endlessly, like two undergraduates.

Other players are: Dr. Brigita Gessner, the CIA’s evil scientist; Sasha Vesna, Dr. Gessner’s assistant and unwitting experimental subject; Jason Kaufman, Dr. Solomon’s editor; and Mr. Everett Finch, Threshold’s evil project manager.

The story follows the Golěm’s quest to destroy Threshold and Langdon’s endless thoughts about the book, Threshold, human nature, etc. While Langdon and Katherine share erudite thoughts, the Golěm takes care of business. 

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Blood on Snow by Jo Lesbo ****

Blood on Snow by Jo Lesbo

Olav’s a fixer (hitman). He believes he’s dyslexic, not fit for anything else. When he’s contracted to kill his boss’s wife for adultery, he kills the lover instead. Olav is a complicated, lovable, and sad nerd, with a tenuous grasp on reality. Read it.

Anyway. To sum up, let’s put it like this: I’m no good at driving slowly, I’m way too soft, I fall in love far too easily, I lose my head when I get angry, and I’m bad at math. I’ve read a bit, but I don’t really know much, and certainly nothing anyone would find useful. And stalactites grow faster than I can write. So what on earth can a man like Daniel Hoffmann use someone like me for? The answer is—as you might have worked out already—as a fixer. Our protagonist sees himself as useless, but as this paragraph shows, he has logical thoughts and deep feelings.

Olav Johansen is full of contradictions. He has an “innate talent for subordination. ”And things get a bit messy when people like that, who have to be in charge, who have to sit on the throne, find out that their women are being unfaithful. I think the Daniel Hoffmanns of this world would have better and simpler lives if they could learn to look the other way, and maybe accept that their wives had an affair or two. When Maria (a deaf-and-dumb clerk at the supermarket) and Corina (whom he is contracted to “fix”) are in trouble, Olav rescues them without considering the consequences or knowing all the facts.

Throughout the book, Olav bemoans his lack of literacy while demonstrating that he is widely read. I’ve read that a human head weighs about four and a half kilos, which, at a speed of seventy kilometers an hour, gives the sort of force that would take someone better at math than me to work out.

In the end, his flaw is not that he is subordinate or dyslexic, but that he is too confident in his own analysis. Classic nerd.

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See How They Hide (A Quinn & Costa Thriller Book 6) by Allison Brennan ****

See How They Hide: A Dark Police Procedural by Allison Brennan

“Do you know how it feels when things are changing so slowly that you don’t realize it until all of a sudden, everything is different?” This thriller is like that. Starting with two murders, the threats grow. You’re like that slowly boiling frog. A page turner.

“Robert Benson, a married forty-seven-year-old antique store owner in rural Weems, Virginia, and twenty-one-year-old single college senior Jane Merrifield in Ashland, Oregon,” had been murdered. “No one would have thought to look at the cases together, except for two facts: both victims had their throats slit, and the killers had littered the bodies with hundreds of dried red poppies.” Kara Quinn and Matt Costa followed the case as the body count rose and the threats mounted.

Victim by victim and clue by clue, the case spreads across the country into an epic battle between Havenwood, a secretive group hidden in the Colorado wilderness, led by Calliope, a charismatic and beautiful woman. “No one was allowed to leave Havenwood. Some had tried; Calliope had stopped them.”  Against, Calliope is her daughter, Riley, and her sister, Thalia. Both sides have organizations with skills ranging from ex-military to hacking. Kara, Matt, and the FBI want to stop this war before more people die.

Notable victims:

Jesse Morrison: FBI cybercrime unit had a person of interest—Jesse Morrison, former Colorado State computer programmer, had quit eight years ago and moved into a family home outside the small town of South Fork. While they had no hard evidence that he was a hacker who helped create false identities, Cybercrimes had flagged him because of some suspicious online activities. His St. Bernard dog was named Banjo. Jesse was tortured and murdered, probably looking for information on the others who left Havenwood. His dog was missing.

Chris Crossman: Crossman’s house in Santa Fe. New clothing and shoes, both male and female, in multiple sizes. Nine identical suitcases. Thirty-six thousand in cash, but more interesting, Crossman had a stack of laminated red poppies that looked exactly like the poppy you found in Merrifield’s apartment. He outfitted new escapees and sent them off to start their new lives.

Trivia: Allison Brennan has written 68 Books (10 Series) since December 2005. >3 books per year.

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All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells *****

All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Murderbot is a Security Unit constructed from organic and inorganic parts with a governor to control the organic parts’ human tendencies. Murderbot hacked the governor. Now, he resembles a powerful augmented human. Not Asimov’s robot.

This book, first in the series, is Murderbot’s origin story. If the company discovered the hacked governor, Murderbot would be destroyed. Murderbot did his best to maintain the fiction that the governor was operating. However, he made exceptions to watch entertainment media. “It’s downloaded seven hundred hours of entertainment programming since we landed. Mostly serials. Mostly something called Sanctuary Moon.” It also made an exception to protect his clients. This is Science Fiction in the classic style: space travel, robots, technology.

His client is the PreservationAux Survey Team, headed by Dr. Mensah. This team of scientists is isolated on a planet with a damaged planetary survey package. The other survey team on the planet, DeltFall, has been murdered. PreservationAux is ill-prepared to defend themselves. The only hope is Murderbot and his hacked governor.

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