Book Review: The Luck of the Weissensteiners (Three Nations Trilogy, Book One) by Christoph Fischer

Synopsis: In the sleepy town of Bratislava in 1933 a romantic girl falls for a bookseller from Berlin. Greta Weissensteiner, daughter of a Jewish weaver, slowly settles in with the Winkelmeier clan just as the developments in Germany start to make waves in Europe. The political climate in the multifaceted cultural jigsaw puzzle of disintegrating Czechoslovakia becomes more complex and affects relations between the couple and the families.

The story follows their lot through the war with its predictable and also its unexpected turns and events and the equally hard times after.

Review: I like fiction books that can go outside of their basic remit to be a page turner, to excite and to thrill. In the case of Christoph Fischer's epic series, I can honestly say I was informed and educated also. The Luck of the Weissensteiners is a truly epic historical work of fiction. When you are going through the early pages, the author goes to great lengths to explain the historical accuracies, but also where it is based on pure storytelling.

Following the lives of the family, the stand-out characters for me are Greta and Wilma. As they make their journey from hell to safer parts of Europe, it is like we go on that journey with them. I was literally exhausted reading this book, but in a good way.

Not everything about the book is perfect, the pace is a little too slow at times, but when it picks up, boy does it. This is a tale that rewards the patient reader.

Having said that, the pace is fitting for the narrative. This is a long tale,indeed, a long journey. The group go through hell and I was stomach churned by some of the descriptions. If you are a little queasy about such things, get over it, because I think this marks out average story telling from great story telling.

I did not read this book quickly. Even with other demands on my time, it was quite something to finish this book. But the author has put his all into this, you can tell he is passionate about the story. I have tried in this review to talk about my feelings about the book, not so much the story itself, because this has been covered in the many good reviews already placed here.

I heartily recommend this book. Get a drink, a place by a warm fire, and get lost in this tale.

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Book Review: Resistance (The Institute, #2) by Kayla Howarth

Resistance is the long awaited follow-up to The Institute. Oh - hang on, didn't I read The Institute just a few weeks ago?

Luckily for us readers, this second installment was released recently, and the third installment is on its way.

Can I start with a small caveat first?

Having set everything up beautifully in The Institute, I expected Book Two to start with a bang. I have to admit to finding both books a little on the slow side at the start.

But often the best part of your food is in the middle, am I right? And it's not long before Resistance is hitting the heady heights of its predecessor.

I think our MC is much more engaging in this follow-up. She's ballsy without being an overtly annoying kick-ass heroine. If she was...she would be just another Katniss cut-out.

Fortunately, we are saved from any repetitive girl on fire by someone who is not actually on fire, but is at boiling point all the same.

Now part of the 'inside', Allira continues her resistance against the state but with echoes of not really knowing who to trust.

There are some fascinating scenes in the book - Brookfield's interrogation of her was genuinely chilling and it seems that as the book progressed, we were being led up to one big bang, then another, then another.

Resistance is brilliant once it gets going. Perhaps the slowish-start is my view only, and not anyone else's. This is fine, as the storytelling is pure quality and yes..the dialogue is far better too.

There was one real humdinger of a scene in the book, and it happens about two thirds in. It's so good, that even if you predicted it, just watch it unfold and excite you as Allira and everyone around her must deal with its consequences.

Put simply, this is shaping up to be the best dystopian trilogy I have read in a while...since, ooh, I don't know....The Hunger Games.

Praise indeed, but praise deserved.

Now stop what you are doing and get a hold of this series.

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Book Review #20: Mr Mercedes by Stephen King

Like all of Mr King's stories, this starts off very strong. Sometimes he tails off before the end, but given how good his writing is, I don't mind so much. This is my first hardback of his since (gasp) Insomnia. But so far, so good. I love a well crafted thriller, and this is shaping up to be very good indeed. Trying not to finish it too fast. Even if this is part of an unnamed trilogy, I want to savour it.

Many people have talked about the book already so I won't rehash all that here, except to say that it is a departure from Mr King's usual trade of horror.

I just got a good feeling about Mr Mercedes. I felt it was going to be a good book, and even though non-horror, there are still plenty of scares to be had.

There were even parts that could be safely described as 'icky', but King is able to balance this well so that it is not drawn out and we are dragged along with it.

The story is quite simple. A retired ex-cop, Bill Hodges, is brought back into the fray when the Mercedes Killer, or <b>merckill</> as he refers to himself online, ploughs a car of the same name into a crowd of people who were just waiting to see if they could get a job via the dole office.

This is one of the books I received for my birthday a month ago, and I've savoured it over the entire month.

Having said that, I raced through the last hundred pages or so, and so does King - the pace is quite something and it builds to a very nice conclusion. This is the first book of an unnamed trilogy so there is more to come, and this is where I hit the first road bump.

The book is great, satisfying and enjoyable. I think the story is much more stronger than King's characters. This is a concern because he is so great at characterisation, so although you know bad things happen to people in the story, I wanted to feel more connected.

Perhaps this is what we will see over books two and three, and because of that, I am prepared to wait and see what happens.

Mr Mercedes is a solid thriller, a genre I enjoy and would like to read more of. I have seen some comments that it is no better than other thrillers out there. Fair enough. That's okay for me.

The writing, as ever, is superb, and there are some genuine laugh out loud moments.

You do care about the ending. Will Hodges catch the computer savvy but seriously deranged Brady Hartsfield, the Mr of the title?

I know Stephen King polarises people but he does have an army of fans too. So I will summarise by saying that he probably could have done even better with this story, but as it is not his strongest genre, I think he's done amazingly well.

Four solid stars. When the trilogy is complete, maybe we can round it up by another one.