Sail by James Patterson & Howard Roughley

Sail by James Patterson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - < 1 day

Pages - 388

Publisher - Arrow

Blurb from Goodreads

"Barely out of sight of land, the Dunne family finds its summer getaway to paradise already turning into the trip from hell. Carrie, the eldest, has thrown herself off the side of the boat in a bid for attention. Sixteen-year-old Mark is getting high belowdecks. And Ernie, their ten-year-old brother. is nearly catatonic. It's shaping up to be the worst vacation ever." "Katherine Dunne had hoped this trip would bring back the togetherness they'd lost when her husband died four years earlier. Maybe if her new husband, a high-powered Manhattan attorney. had been able to postpone his trial and join them it would all have been okay." Suddenly, a disaster hits - and it's perfect. Faced with real danger, the Dunnes rediscover the meaning of family and pull together in a way they haven't in a long time. But this catastrophe is just a tiny taste of the danger that lurks ahead: someone wants to make sure that the Dunne family never makes it out of paradise alive.



My Review

I really enjoy Patterson books although his collaborations with other authors not always so much. This one is perfect for a beach read or if you just want something that isn't challenging. The Dunnes are taking the family boat out for a trip together to try and reconnect & sort out their issues. Peter Carlyle is the step dad and staying behind in New York, his wife, her three kids and her brother in law from a previous marriage head off. Personal problems arise, a horrendous storm hits and then there is an explosion, certainly not the best start to a holiday. Stranded, hurt and presumed dead, the Dunnes need to do what they can to stay alive.

There is a lot about this book that you find yourself having to suspend reality to get through but once you do that it is actually an enjoyable, fast paced read. The characters have a lot of personal issues to get through but once they are in peril that takes a back seat. The book splits between the Dunnes encounters and back home with the smarmy step father hot shot lawyer.

As with all Patterson books, the chapters are tiny which annoys some people but I actally really like that, you can dip in and out as time allows. As I said a good choice for a day by the pool and if you can get past the most unlikely events happening you will enjoy the book, 3/5 for me.

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Virals by Kathy Reichs

Virals by Kathy Reichs
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 3 days

Publisher - Arrow

Pages - 454

Blurb from Goodreads

Fourteen-year-old Tory Brennan is as fascinated by bones and dead bodies as her famous aunt, acclaimed forensic anthropologist, Tempe Brennan. However living on a secluded island off Charleston in South Carolina there is not much opportunity to put her knowledge to the test. Until her and her ragbag group of technophile friends stumble across a shallow grave containing the remains of a girl who has been missing for over thirty years. The question is, did whoever was responsible for the girl's death have anything to do with the sick puppy they rescued from a secret laboratory on the same island?





With the cold-case murder suddenly hot, Tory realises that they are involved in something fatally dangerous. But events take a turn for the bizarre when they escape some would-be attackers by using physical powers more akin to a dog than a human... Could the puppy hold the key not only to the murder, but also the strange changes that are taking place in their bodies?




My Review

I have read Kathy Reichs before and quite enjoyed her writing, on the tales of Temperance (Tempe) Brennan although this is the first book in a new series. Told through fourteen year old Tory Brennan, the niece of Tempe, Tempe is refered to in this book although she does not appear. Tory lives on a secluded island with her father, their relationship is strained and new to both of them. Tory is an outcast with most of the other kids, she has a close group of technophile friends, kids into their technology and generally smarter than most of the kids on the island. When they discover a body buried in a shallow grave and a break in to a near by secured facility they find themselves the target of someone who will kill to keep the past in the past.

The book, for me, started off ok. We have some cute wolve-dog family living on the island, a father and daughter trying to adjust to their fairly new and thrown upon them relationship and some mean old professor who dislikes the kids. The kids are really smart, curious and end up breaking into a restricted facility and coming upon secret testing in a lab. The fall out of this is the children find themselves changing and having new "powers", they also discover a few secrets that people have killed to keep quiet. The kids then go on exploring and digging into the past as well as trying to keep their "find" a secret as well as dealing with teen angst stuff.

There was a bit too much of everything flung into this story for me and some of the things that happened and the kids pulled off, you would need to suspend reality in order to get through it. A character does a complete 1-80 with no real reason given as to why, which always annoys me. I loved the parts about the wolve-dog animals, I thought that was a nice touch, however most of the other stuff was just too far fetched for me. Considering horror is my favourite genre, I don't mind suspending belief for stories but the way this one is done, it just didn't work, for me personally. This is the start of a new series I believe and if I came across it I would read the second book but I wouldn't go out of my way to get it and I definitely wouldn't be buying it. 2/5 for me this time, I think I will stick to the Tempe books as I remember enjoying them a lot more than this one.

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